The Most Boring Mission
by Gul Bricett
Summary: The Enterprise is sent to explore an absolutely quiet and peaceful sector. The crew is slowly going crazy from boredom and looks for new hobbies and entertainments. Contains some dubious shenanigans, bare bottoms, and an novel reason for earning a medal.


**Disclaimer: **Star Trek is owned by Paramount, I'm just having fun with it.

**Author's Note:** This story was written to fill the following prompt by **corpus invictus** on the new st_xi_kink_meme: "So the Enterprise isn't always in the middle of wacky hijinks and political problems and interplanetary war. I'm sure they get some missions that basically consist of, 'Go out to space. Make sure it's still dark. Run extensive tests.' I want to see all the crazy stupid sh*t the crew gets up to in order to prevent themselves from killing each other out of pure boredom. ... Don't forget the ladies of the Enterprise. And bonus points if Gaila's around."

**Rated T** for some dubious shenanigans and bare bottoms. Nothing explicit, though.

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It was the best of missions; it was the worst of missions, when Command sent the Enterprise to explore Sector 3741. The good part was that this uncharted sector was full of stars of rare spectral types and solar systems harboring valuable resources and most interesting, if not sentient, life forms, but completely lacking trigger-happy Klingons, dangerous space pirates, and threatening supernovas. This was also the bad part: while Mr. Spock and most of the Science department were almost giddy with excitement, the rest of the crew was slowly going crazy from boredom.

Something had to be done. And in the ship's great tradition, everybody boldly went to seek out new pastimes and entertainments:

**5 RECREATIONAL ACTIVITIES THAT MORE OR LESS FAILED**

**1. Math Club**

Founded by Commander Spock and Ensign Chekov, it didn't have that many members to begin with. In fact, after the second meeting, Scotty was the only regular attendant. But when the founders decided to calculate Pi for a challenge, Scotty declared that to be boring: "We'll never see the end of it!" When he was outvoted, he started to send recordings of the Andorian singer Thik (equally famous for his mercilessly cheerful songs and the application of glitter to his antennae) to his fellow members' PADDs, which lead to raised eyebrows and pouting. After that, Spock and Chekov gave up on converting the unwashed masses to their mutual hobby.

**2. A Flower Show**

This idea was nipped in the bud, because, to quote Lt. Uhura: "You know there won't be any real competition – so where's the fun in that, Hikaru?" Instead a

**3. Baking Contest**

was held. Sulu entered a bowl of home-made fortune cookies. While the baking itself wasn't that spectacular, he had invested much time in researching and printing meaningful, witty and original quotes. Unfortunately, he forgott to use teh spel cheker. Some of the results were quite comical, which caused Uhura to throw a laughing fit, and Sulu to grab the bowl and eat the cookies himself in protest, paper slips and all.

Item #1 thus out of the way, the jury (Dr. McCoy and Mr. Spock) concentrated on Entry # 2, a cake baked by Gaila and decorated in several glorious shades of blue. It seemed to be a real contender, until Dr. McCoy, who had scanned it, declared it poisonous, because the blue colors were produced by a generous amount of copper vitriol. Mr. Spock countered that it was perfectly safe for consumption by green-blooded persons, and in fact delicious (he had already tasted it), and there was no rule that said the baked goods had to be edible by each and every species aboard. The doctor denied this, and the following discussion (stringent logic vs. heightened emotions) became so heated that the captain had to order the two jurors to leave and not to come back until they reached an agreement.

Now, Janice Rand started to cry and ran out of the room, because there was nobody there anymore to appreciate her crispy buns, so it fell to Captain Kirk to console his yeoman. On a console.

Likewise, Pavel Chekov was upset by the disappearance of the jury, for, after a recipe provided by his Mama, he had created a veritable masterwork of patisserie: a model of the famous _Vassily Blazhenni _cathedral in Red Square, made of _moroshenoye_ (werry creamy ice cream, inwented in Russia!). As per the rules, he had had to switch off the stasis field conserving it as soon as the contest opened. Now the ice cathedral was beginning to melt, and Pavel was afraid all his efforts had been in vain. Seeing him like this nearly broke Gaila's heart, so she started to gently lick the onion spires and then ate the Main Tower, all the time telling Pavel how sweet and tasty all of it was, until the navigator felt loved and content again.

By now, most of the contestants and spectators had left, so Keenser and Crewman Grolk, a Tellarite engineer, decided it was a sin to let all those fine pastries go to waste. So when the jurors finally returned, slightly exhausted and significantly calmed, there was nothing left for them to judge but a few crumbs.

**4. "Japanese Fan Dance" Lessons**

Lt. Sulu's attempt to educate his fellow crew members in this classical art form fell victim to a misunderstanding. Uhura in an extremely frilly dress and white, knee-high stockings, and Gaila in a tuxedo sure looked nice; and Hikaru assumed that Dr. McCoy's super-wide cloak and chalk-white make up were just a failed attempt to copy a traditional kabuki theater costume, until the doctor put on a huge hat, and explained he was a vampire hunter. When the captain came in wearing a mini-skirt and a navy-style girls' blouse with a huge yellow bow and called himself "Sailor Uranus", Uhura's murmured comment "sailor my anus, more like" was uncalled for. And Chekov in a green wig and a French maid's costume saying he was a lettuce that could breathe underwater was puzzling, but, of course, cute. But when Scotty arrived wearing a Giant Panda suit, the would-be instructor threw the towel.

At least they got a nice holo shot out of this.

**5. Ship wide Hide-and-seek**

It was played in groups and a fad for more than two weeks. At first it was regarded favorably by the captain, First Officer, and Chief of Security, because it caused an over-all improvement of ship's security, as several undocumented sensor-blind spots and hollow bulkheads were discovered. But as the players became more competitive, things slowly got out of hand. Inexplicable sensor malfunctions began to occur ever more frequently, and then a seekers' team from Security flooded a whole deck with anaesthizine gas. But the last straw was Lt. "Cupcake" Matthews getting stuck in a particularly narrow Jeffries tube – atop of Keenser. The tube had to be dismantled, which took several hours, and after that the captain forbad the game.

Keenser and Cupcake, by the way, were inseparable ever since; and everybody agreed that Keenser had become more talkative, and Cupcake less irascible. So there was that.

**…AND**

**5 RECREATIONAL ACTIVITIES THAT WERE A SUCCESS (SORTA)**

**1. Medical Lectures**

Dr. McCoy's series of popular lectures: "Sexual hygiene in interspecies relationships", "STDs in space", and "Cultural and erotic taboos of selected planets", was very positively received by the crew, and enjoyed high attendance and lively discussion. The good doctor was deeply moved by the sheer number of crew members who volunteered to provide additional audiovisual aids, both from private collections and from their research on the galactic comm nets. The crew's opinion on these educative meetings was best summed up in an anonymous post on the ship's news bulletin (originating from the Captain's chair): "Finally: Science facts you can really use!"

**2. Talent Night, Part I: Dancing, Orion Style**

It was the most logical endeavor, and so preparations for an evening of amateur acts began early on. When Gaila offered to teach anybody interested Orion dancing, so many crew members accepted her offer that a whole evening could be dedicated to a contest of dance groups and soloists.

The "Green and White Crew" (Lt. Gaila/Nurse Chapel/Yeoman Rand) beat all the competition hands down in the "Group" category.

Among the soloists, Captain Kirk proved once more that he could shimmy his hips with the best of them; but even he had no chance against the winner, Lt. Fatma Robau, Assistant Shuttle Bay Operator and fortyish niece of the famed space hero. Lt. Robau presented a fusion of Orion and Oriental belly dance style that was absolutely mesmerizing.

But the unofficial highlight of the evening was Scotty's performance. He danced in a full Highland costume, and halfway through his act, he fell on his face, revealing that he was a True Scotsman. All the ladies first squealed, and then applauded. He earned the affectionate nickname "Bravebutt", and his social life improved considerably afterwards. It was about time.

**3. The Enterprise Football Cup**

Initially, there was another misunderstanding: the captain didn't realize that Scotty meant the Other (or, according to the chief engineer, "Real") football, when he proposed to hold a Ship's Cup in Shuttle bay 2. So Captain Kirk looked forward to watching nice looking girls swinging pom-poms. When the difference was pointed out to him, Jim still seemed to think this was a game for girls, and didn't know what Chekov meant with: "But, keptin, he's from Glasgow …"

So, shawls were knitted and banners sewn, and vaguely threatening graffiti started to appear in the corridors and turbo lifts. But thanks to Mr. Spock, the strict and thorough referee (he even booked Uhura for back-talking), nothing really exciting happened until the Medical vs. Engineering match.

Late in the second half, when Medical was behind 3:1, Dr. Pereira, a surgeon from Beta shift who played defender, revealed why he had taken the player name "Hypinho". And he might have gotten away with this non-regular way of stopping Mr. Kyle's attack, because nobody had seen the hypo spray he palmed. But the injection didn't just disorient the Assistant Transporter Chief – he fell down on the spot and started to snore. For this foul, Hypinho was shown red immediately, but then the team captains – Dr. McCoy and Scotty – got into a shouting-and-shoving match, the rest of their teams joined in, Spock tried to nerve-pinch the worst offenders in vain, and then the spectators stormed the playing field.

Fortunately, there were enough Security personnel on duty to arrest everybody who took part in the resulting free-for-all, even if it took a while. The brig had never been so full, or so merry, because the chanting and singing went on for hours. The next morning, all were let go again, because somebody had to fly the ship, after all, and to this day the match is fondly remembered.

**4. Talent Night, Part II**

Some of the acts presented were predictably entertaining: everybody had heard that Spock was very good at playing the Vulcan lute, and that Uhura sang like an angel, and they didn't disappoint.

Some were a pleasant surprise: it was an easy guess that Chekov could count cards in his head, but that he also possessed the dexterity to perform some really good tricks with them was news to many.

But the crowning moment of the evening, in a way, was Captain Kirk's rendition of the famous aria from the classical Klingon opera "Aktuh and Melota". He performed with passion and force, and the audience sat in stunned silence, until Dr. McCoy got up and yelled: "You pseudo-Klingon bastard, you're killing my eardrums!"

Recordings of this performance have become valued collectors' items.

**5. The Scavenger Hunt**

On first glance, it was just an encore of the Hide-and-seek drama. Several teams competed for almost a week, and some of their activities, like obtaining a self-sealing stem bolt from Engineering, caused minor malfunctions. But the item that brought the most points was "a pair of Alpha shift bridge officer's pants", and on the last day, the teams took no chances.

So, when Alpha shift was called to the bridge a bit earlier than normal, because a suspicious sensor blip had appeared on screen, Mr. Spock reported for duty in a make-shift toga he wore with great dignity, Mr. Sulu in sky-blue boxers and Mr. Chekov in briefs with puppy dogs printed on them. But the captain arrived on the bridge completely bottomless, because he had just seen all the contents of his drawer disappearing before his very eyes (and because Jim Kirk was fearless, of course).

But the difference was in the final outcome:

Chief Mariko Hayashi, who had secured victory for her team with this astonishing feat of precision beaming, received not only a week of arrest and a reprimand in her file, but also an invitation to transfer to the Daystrom Institute for this. She took up on this offer after the mission's end and worked for many years in the field of transporter improvement, being instrumental to several breakthroughs.

On the other hand, the suspicious blip that started the whole excitement didn't turn up again and was dismissed as a random sensor ghost. But, as the crew didn't know at the time, it wasn't. It actually was the only First Contact during the mission, because the reading was caused by a cloaked, unmanned probe sent out by the Matriarchy of Angel One. After studying the transmitted data, the Matriarchs contacted the Federation, citing "the extremely fine officers' material serving aboard Starfleet ships" among their reasons for wishing to take up diplomatic relations.

Therefore, Captain Kirk was given another medal (for "Merits in diplomacy without even trying") after the Enterprise's return from its most boring mission.


End file.
